Buy The Book?

July 13, 2006
By Anise Sinclair

**** A very worthwhile purchase
*** Worth buying at a discount
**Borrow it from a friend
*Better off writing your own book

Canoe Hullabaloo Cookbook ****

225 Pages, Hardcover, no pictures
Morris Press Cookbooks, Kearney, Nebraska, 2006
$15.00

 Despite its name, the Canoe Hullabaloo Cookbook does not claim to be the definitive collection of recipes from the Old Town area. If it did, it would have to include many more recipes for seafood and game dishes. But as it turns out, the recipes it does offer are much more varied and intriguing, not to mention heartily representative of the diverse tastes and cooking styles of the inhabitants of "Canoe City."

 As recipe collections go, the Canoe Hullabaloo Cookbook follows the tried and true formula of most grass-roots collaborative efforts. The recipes are straight from the recipe cards and kitchens of people that could be your mom, your dad, or your Aunt Elise. The names that go with the recipes are just as folksy and down-home. Consider, for instance, a recipe called "Crabbies." You won't find its duplicate in the cookbooks that Wolfgang Puck or Emeril Lagassie have published, but there's still a lot to be said in favor of a dish that combines a whole jar of Old English cheese with a can of crabmeat (or tuna, or shrimp) and English muffins.

 These are the kind of recipes that have lately become so trendy among young urban professionals, who refer to dishes like "crabbies" as "comfort food." These are the kind of meals that, once you eat them, stick in your mind as well as to your ribcage, just like a favorite old melody from your childhood.

 Take a recipe for a dish called "Meat Loaf Muffins. While the name may sound like an unholy combination of two diametrically-opposed edible substances, the actual recipe is a study in everyday cooking genius. All the aspiring chef needs in order to make this meat-lover's delight are a pound of extra lean ground beef, a six ounce package of stuffing mix, a cup of water, a tablespoon of garlic, a fourth of a chopped onion, three fourths of a cup of shredded mozzarella or cheddar cheese, and a bottle of barbecue sauce. The next step is to combine the ingredients, pour the mixture into a 12-muffin pan (coated with non-stick spray), and then make an indentation the middle of each little meat muffin with the press of a spoon. Into the over they go, and thirty minutes later-voila! Top with the melted cheese and you have a gastronomic miracle on your hands.

 Down-home cooking of this scope and diversity is not to be dismissed by those of us who crave the rib-sticking yumminess of yesteryear. But because we do live in a health-conscious society, the Canoe Hullabaloo Cookbook also offers recipes for the Lipitor set. Among them are two excellent recipes for hummus, one for the regular kind and one for an "easy" variety, a recipe called "Margie's Bran Muffins" (meatless, of course), and my favorite, "Good-For-You Turkey Chili", which would be a perfect entrée to add to the endless turkey meals that are the inevitable aftermath of Thanksgiving.

 Health consciousness aside, the Canoe Hullabaloo Cookbook gets four star-shaped cookies in my book. Not only is it well worth the $15 price tag, the money goes to an excellent cause, The River Coalition. Another heads-up: if you plan on attending the Canoe Hullabaloo festivities, you can actually purchase the original artwork on the cover of the book at the live auction. And there's nothing looney about that!